Seven Days Later
by Clan Dragoodle
Summary: In the dwindle of Valentine's Day, Aeris sits alone to reflect with an Idealist on her own missing Cinderella story. She hadn't expected anything special on this day, but that just left room for her to be surprised.


_Can somebody save me?  
'Cause I'm thinking maybe,  
You can take me piece by piece_

_---_**  
**

What had she expected? Some fairy-tale get away in the midst of the planet's demise? Something more than just a quick rest in the middle of God only knows where? What had made this day any different from the last and next than a simple marking on a calendar? An object of everyday organization that they hadn't caught heads or tails of in over two months no less. Aeris Gainsborough heaved a heavy sigh at her ridiculous thoughts.

The slanted tree stump at the base of her spine caused only mild discomfort in her posture. It was more the poison ivy epidemic braking out among her comrades that made the resting spot uncomfortable. Apparently they had all chosen to go to the bathroom in the exact same area, and apparently the Planet didn't appreciate that. She stifled a small smile as Nanaki waddled by, dragging his hindquarters over the rough dirt path. His attempt to cure the out-break.

But even the strange quirks of her traveling team couldn't lift the disappointment for long. After all, it just reminded her that tonight would not be showered with flowers of romantic persuasion, but smashed for no-itch ointments. Oh, the glamorous lifestyle of the traveler. But she could argue that their company was better then spending the evening alone, the brighter side always in mind.

But not today.

Today was February fourteenth; a day of passion and the unexpected, built on myth of arrows and love at first sight. And today would go unnoticed in the hike over the barren landscape, not a spot of civilization dotted on the horizon. For today marked the third month in her team's march across the planet in pursuit of the unknown.

Not Valentine's Day.

She sighed again, leaving her cheek to rest on the supporting hand, holding her head to face the leaking red on the skyline. A calm breeze cooling the sweat of the hike on her neck and dancing with the rings of honey caressing her face. The hair light and wild on the wind's breath, tickling her smile into submission. The planet had a way of doing that to the young Cetra.

"You okay, Aeris?"

The petite pink clad girl didn't move under the soft voice, the sound itself carrying to her ear on the same breeze her hair shared.

She had been expecting those words to reach her tonight. It was a ritual for the younger girl, to make sure everyone was "okay". It happened at least once a day, possibly twice depending on the circumstances. Aeris had avoided the question keeping to the back of the group in the uphill hike. Not by choice of course, but limitation.

But she was glad to have those words, used and shared as they were, it was some form of companionship. And who was she to complain?

"I'm fine. Yourself?"

It had always followed like this; short generic responses in a polite rebuttal. Kept the conversation light but the friendship distant. Tifa Lockhart had never been one to share much other than optimistic cheers or concerns. The fighter's face always drawn up in a stoic expression with soft features, a smile slipping once in a while at the word of Barret or Cloud.

For that's where Tifa Lockhart hiked. At the front of the group with Barret and Cloud. And Aeris was in the back, stumbling to breeding limitations.

"I'm okay. Grateful for missing that poison ivy bullet." The dark haired girl chuckled lowly as Aeris felt a presence set on her side. "The sky sure is pretty."

"It's all the pollution that turns the sky that deep a shade of red."

Aeris didn't exactly know why she had soiled the moment like that. Taking an easy conversation into a negative tone and bringing about the very reason she perched on this stump, uncomfortable on the uneven seat.

She felt the other girl stretch taller and become still at the comment. Aeris was still hypnotized by the beauty of men's murder. Some monstrous birds were catching a drift and taking place along the blue and red dyed clouds. Their beauty much more apparent when not battling along the hike.

"Leave it to man to wander where Mother Nature cannot walk to achieve what he labels as beauty. All to the convenience of technology." The normally controlled tone of Tifa's voice was harsh and barely audible over the complaining of their friends in the background. "The world will end the day we pay the consequences for our convenience."

Her beautiful face contorted in disgust at the thought.

Aeris was now facing the raven-haired warrior, taking measure of how the younger girls lips pulled back to bare her teeth when she spoke in hatred. How the tiny lines at the youth's eyes pulled together as she glared openly at the beautiful red sky. The dark strands cascading down her ivory skin in sheets, unmoving to the wind's fingers. Like a statue she sat, hunched over with her arms crossed and hands stuffed under her biceps for warmth.

"Pretty deep for a Slums girl. You get that off a fortune cookie?"Aeris teased.

She delighted in watching the fighter's expression lighten and that smile slip into place.

"The words of an idealist are beautiful but theoretical. We are poets to a physics professor, for all we have of measurement is expected expectations."

Tifa's brow furrowed over the mahogany eyes for a moment, lost in something that only her mind could see. Aeris smiled again at the poetic gibberish. This conversation much more entertaining then the last about Cloud's hair maintenance

Tifa's words so carefully constructed, so chewed over that it made the Cetra wonder how many times she had perfected the poetry in her head before it would come free cleanly, without stumbles or "ums". Perhaps this is what she did in the silence of her stoic features, while hiking ahead with Barret and Cloud.

"An idealist, huh? Is that what you call yourselves? So why bother with "Avalanche" at all? Why not just be the "Idealists"?"

"Avalanche is what we are. We're an idea, that balls into a belief, that becomes an action. And it keeps rolling until it causes this huge tumbling mission." Her tone was light, demonstrating with her hands in several motions.

"Everything so wrapped up in metaphors for you?"

The honey haired woman playfully nudged her shoulder into the other girl.

"No, we like similes, too."

She returned the nudge, breaking her stone like posture and seemingly becoming just as vulnerable to the wind as the Ancient at her side.

"It is pretty though, huh? Despite all the destruction something so beautiful sits. All we have to do is look at it."

Perhaps she should wrap herself up in the complications of their journey. Though the Ancient knew she must accept whatever lay ahead she had not wanted to think too far ahead of her steps. Keeping her mind close and resting on the footsteps of her ahead teammates. Not wanting to race up the hill to see what lay over the horizon, to see if the sky was red on both sides.

She would let the leaders pull her thoughts that way. For that's why they walked there, Cloud and Barret. And Tifa.

"Like roses."

Tifa leaned back to support her hands on the back of the stump while next to the girl. Admiring the color of the falling dusk, the sky bleeding to kiss the hills before slowly slipping away.

"Like Valentine's Day." Aeris sighed. Again.

Tifa shot the other girl a curious look before tilting her head back and doing the math. It was Valentine's Day. She laughed. The sound shuffling her shoulders, causing friction against the sleeve of the pink clad girl.

"What's so funny?"

"You. You're the only one to keep track of something so trivial."

Her mahogany eyes closed in her laughter so she couldn't catch the Ancient roll her eyes in a very immature expression.

"I don't think it's trivial. In the midst of everything so depressing I think we need something so simple and beautiful to keep walking." She was talking more to herself then the brunette sharing the small stump, facing the dying day.

Another Valentine missed, another opportunity for that Cinderella story to go unplaced.

She suddenly bent and started tugging at her weathered hiking boots, the brown leather crumpling to the ground when she threw them to the side. Industrial leather toppled over in the overgrown weeds. Tifa sat watching silently, her laughter chided at Aeris' tone.

They sat like that for a few moments. The sun was fading behind the lowest peak of the rolling hills in the distance, its light still reaching the two on the stump and shrouding the world around them in darkness. A soft amber illumination touching from behind as the group started a fire for settling, and caught in that light of a dying day and man's destruction, Tifa turned to the older woman and smiled.

The fighter rose from the seat with little notice from the older girl, the Ancient too busy picking at the taller stalks of grass with her toes. Her head was cast downwards at the dark earth, braid spilling over her shoulder to hang, making a small complaint at the other girl's leave with a droop in her shoulders.

Cinderella sat alone on the make shift perch. The fading red of roses was causing a strange tint over the wilderness, opening to a magnificent view of the world she sat alone at, reflecting to herself as a silhouette on the horizon. Just a sting on how another year had slipped by, her cupped hands not able to hold the water of life.

And suddenly, just before the sun gave out to the night, someone was next to the flower girl again. Down on one knee and holding something in her face.

Something smelly.

It took a moment to focus on exactly what the object was in the dim tint, but she found it to be a shoe - her shoe. The weathered boot scuffed with the hike and straightened to stand up in the ankle. A bundle of flowers and other dried plants found around the area – daisy's, lavender, dandelions, weeds, the whole hill! – filled her boot to bloom out the top. Right in her face.

She drew her face back and squinted in the dusk, not exactly sure what to do. There were no footsteps to follow. But before her, on one knee, knelt Tifa, presenting the boot to her like a marvelous bouquet of roses. One of the weeds fell to the earth in the breeze.

"Happy Valentine's Day Aeris."

Her soft features grinning wildly and burgundy eyes bright in the darkness staring up into Aeris, sincere and kind. Another hard wind picking apart on the dandelions in the boot, having the seeds scatter from the bulb into Aeris' hair. The older girl smiled.

And just as the flower girl opened her mouth to speak, Tifa opened hers.

"Now get your boots on and let's head back to the others. I think they need help with that poison ivy."

She stood towering above the sitting girl, smiling down as Aeris took the bouquet. Carefully pulling the flowers from their vase she slid her fading jade nails into the leather. Finding the other boot at Tifa's feet, she replaced that one as well. All the while under the watch of the younger girl above her.

The sun had finally fallen to the moon and the two walked back, arms linked to steady each other over the uneven path. The mess of flowers clutched to Aeris breast with the free hand.

The two hiked ahead together, making their own footsteps towards the crackle of the fire and complaints of men.

She definitely hadn't expected this.


End file.
